


Behind the scenes at the super ministry

by Tereshkova (EarthboundCosmonaut)



Series: Occasional flashes of competence [2]
Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Chips - Freeform, Fruit Shoots, Gen, Violence to mobile phones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 01:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12997203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/pseuds/Tereshkova
Summary: Malcolm’s doing a late night sweep up of the 'super ministry' - the totally inappropriate name given to the last PM's attempt to demonstrate joined up government by housing four departments in one building. What he'd actually succeeding in doing was amalgamating the four government departments that rated lowest in importance and highest in propensity to fuck up into one stinking cesspool. Some days Malcolm feels that he fucking lives there. Like today for instance.In which Malcolm is running on fumes and Nicola provides snacks. Rated T for canon-typical language.





	Behind the scenes at the super ministry

Malcolm’s doing a late night sweep up of the 'super ministry' - the totally inappropriate name given to the last PM's attempt to demonstrate joined up government by housing four departments in one building. What he'd actually succeeding in doing was amalgamating the four government departments that rated lowest in importance and highest in propensity to fuck up into one stinking cesspool. Some days Malcolm feels that he fucking lives there. Like today for instance.

Malcolm had placed the first floor – home of the Department for Sport and Creative Industries – under lockdown earlier in the day after one of the junior ministers had been named in papers associated with the FIFA corruption scandal. The fires were under control now and the minions allowed to return home on pain of disembowelment if any leaking took place overnight. Malcolm was still buzzing though – it was the end of a week of shitstorms and he was running on two hours of napping a night and enough caffeine to power a nuclear submarine.  
   
He hopes that a final sweep of the building will allow him to walk off some adrenaline and reassure himself that no other excrement mines would explode over the weekend. He's so tired that there are ants crawling at the corners of his field of vision.  
   
He's surprised to find lights still on in DoSAC. There are no imminent deadlines looming for the Department and the bunch of incompetents aren’t known for going above and beyond the call of duty. He's even more surprised to see that the light that is still on is in Nicola Murray’s office. She's usually at home by seven o’clock on a Friday night, wrestling her brood of hellions into bed and giving her wankstain of a husband a hand job – or whatever it is that she does in her time off. It's well after ten now.  
   
He moves towards her office, pausing near Ollie’s desk to see whether he's hoarding anything incriminating. Malcolm suspects the two faced worm of being the biggest source of unauthorised leaks in the Department and is amassing a portfolio of evidence to hang over him at a strategic moment. He notices that his hands are trembling as he roots through the sheaf of papers in Ollie's bottom drawer and triumphantly retrieves confidential projections on illegal immigration that the little twat definitely shouldn’t have had a copy of.  
   
From his position he can see Nicola pacing her office, mobile to her ear. She is wearing a revolting magenta cocktail dress and her most sullen expression.  
   
“Why are you telling me this now?” she demands of whoever was on the other end of the phone. Her voice is tense and impatient. “You must have known about this days ago. I’ve wasted my entire fucking evening waiting for you…No we can’t do it next fucking weekend! Do you know how much persuasion it took to get my parents to have the kids for the night after what happened with Ella last time? Besides which you’ll probably have another “urgent” client dinner then too...No, don’t bother. The only thing that could make this night worse is you coming in drunk at four o’clock in the morning and pawing me like a randy fucking dog…Yeah, happy fucking anniversary to you too darling. Twenty years of my life that I’ll never get back!”  
   
Nicola hurls her phone at the wall, knocking a hideous bust that had been presented to her at a school visit onto the floor and piercing the canvas on the wall behind it. “Fucking cunting bastard!” She bangs the filing cabinet for emphasis and then groans “Jesus fuck that hurts!” as she discovers that metal is a lot more sturdy than her arm.  
   
“Good evening, Minister,” he says, leaning in the doorway of her office. His exhausted body is grateful for the support – there is starting to be a time delay between his brain issuing commands to his legs and them responding. “You’re looking exceptionally gaudy even by your standards. Which Quality Street have you come as – the fudge or the hazelnut caramel?”  
   
“Christ Malcolm!” Nicola visibly leaps in the air at the sound of his voice, clutching her hand to her chest.  
   
“I see myself more as the Archangel Azrael – culling the fuckin’ deadwood with a burning sword.”  
   
She turns her back to him and walks towards her desk, swiping at her eye in what she must hope is a surreptitious manner. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out drinking the blood of virgins?”  
   
“Virgins are hard to come by these days. Sometimes I have to fall back on dried out cabinet ministers.”  
   
“Piss off. It’s the weekend – I don’t have to put up with any more abuse from you until Monday morning.” Nicola leans against her desk, arms folded tightly across her abdomen.  
   
“I’m doing a spot check of the building, making sure there are no steaming turds in the corners that I’m going to have to fuckin’ clean up. Anything to declare?”  
   
"Nothing you need to worry about. Unless you want to know about Terri's dog's anal glands."

"I'd rather be fucked in the arse with a cactus."

"Well if that's all I'm going home. You should too - you look terrible."

He's starting to feel terrible. His hands are now sweaty as well as shaky and the ants in the corner of his vision are making a slow march towards the centre. "You don't look so good yourself, ye've got a face on yeh like a slapped arse."

Nicola shrugs on her coat and retrieves her phone from where it has landed at the side of the filing cabinet, typing a brief message. "Elvis is going to be downstairs in five minutes. I'm going to leave you to your turd hunt and wait outside."

Malcolm shifts to let her pass through the doorway and white spots dance in front of his eyes. He tries to make sense of it but his body feels leaden and he finds himself pitching forward without any ability to catch himself. He's vaguely aware of Nicola's startled cry and of something soft that slows his momentum. Then things go black.

He starts and then groans because the lights are too fucking bright and there's a loud, high pitched noise very close to his ear.

"Malcolm. Malcolm!" A hand grips his shoulder and shakes.

He covers his eyes with his arm and turns to the side, trying to block out the light. His head and arm are resting on something soft and warm that shifts underneath him.

"Malcolm, are you all right?"

It's Nicola. Nicola Murray. He looks up at her and realises that he is lying down. Lying half on the floor and half on the minister's lap. He can smell heavy duty carpet fibres and her perfume. His stomach roils in protest.

"Wha' the fuck's going on?"

"I don't know. I think you fainted. I tried to catch you but you're went down like a bloody tower block."

He pushes himself onto an elbow. Nicola is sprawled on the floor in a position that doesn't look at all comfortable. Freed of his weight, she shifts so that she is sitting on her heels. "When did you last have something to eat?"

He understand all the words in the sentence, but he can't marshal his thoughts to answer. His mind, usually an overflowing sewer of vocabulary, is mute. It's confusing but not unpleasant.

"Here," Nicola roots in her handbag and holds something out to him. When he makes no move in response she shuffles forward and presses something to his lips, cupping the back of his head gently.

The instinct to drink kicks in. Whatever she's giving him is sweet and cold, and within a minute the sugar hits his brain like a shot of adrenaline, bringing the world back into focus. He pulls himself into a more or less upright position and Nicola sits back, watching him closely.

There is a synthetic taste in his mouth that would make him want to gag if the sugar wasn't so welcome. "What the fuck is that?"

She holds up a little purple bottle to show him. "Fruit Shoot." 

"Why the fuck have yeh got that? It tastes like a diabetic's piss."

"First rule of parenting: always carry snacks."

He takes the bottle from her and swallows another mouthful. "So much for Healthy Choices."

She pulls a face. "If you tell anyone I'll ring the News of the World and explain how the Director of Communications came to my office late at night and threw himself at me."

"No one's going to fuckin' believe that yeh desperate housewife."

"You need to go home Malcolm, you're a wreck."

"For once in yer pathetic excuse for a life yeh might be right." He pushes himself to his knees and Nicola helps him stand.

"All right?"

"I won't be going anywhere near yer lap again so you can forget any of yer sordid fantasies about me takin' you on yer office floor."

"You couldn't get it up at the moment if I gave you a lap dance," she tells him, hovering at his elbow as he walks towards the lift.

His legs still feel shaky and he forsakes a reply in favour of maintaining control of his feet. When he gets to the lobby Nicola presses the call button while Malcolm leans gratefully against the wall. "Meet me downstairs," she tells him when the lift arrives, reaching in to hit the ground floor button. "I'll give you a ride."

It takes her a few minutes to negotiate six flights of stairs in high heels. They step outside together and the cool air makes him realise how stuffy the office was. He takes a couple of deep breaths.

"Are you getting in?" Nicola asks, leaning across the back seat of the car to shout at him through the open door. He climbs into the car and fumbles with the seatbelt.

"Can you take me home and then drop Malcom off please?" Nicola asks Elvis, and then turns back to him. "When was the last time you ate something other than satsumas and Curly Wurlies?"

Malclom leans back against the head rest and runs a hand over his face. "Yer not mae mother Nic'la. Thank God or I'd still be in fuckin' therapy."

"You'd still be in the floor slipping in and out of a coma if I hadn't been with you."

"At least ah'd have got some sleep."

Nicola lets out a huff. "You're going to have a heart attack if you're not careful. Or a stroke. Do you know that you have a vein in your forehead that looks like it's about to explode whenever you get angry?"

"Mah head feels like it's going to explode whenever I talk to you."

"For fuck's sake Malcolm," she mutters, but there's more frustration than malice in her tone.

They sit in blissful silence for a while until Nicola leans forward and taps Elvis on the shoulder. "Can you pull over here for a minute?"

She bolts out of the car without a word of explanation and returns five minutes later with a carrier bag giving off a smell that is sweet and sharp and makes him salivate like Pavlov's fucking dog. 

"Wha's that?" he asks, although it's self explanatory when she pulls a paper bundle out of the carrier bag and spreads a pack of chips out on her lap.

"You might not be hungry but I'm fucking starving. I haven't eaten since lunchtime."

He reaches across and takes a couple of chips. She's ordered them with salt and vinegar and the explosion of flavour and texture in his mouth is practically indecent. They sit in silence munching through the pack. Nicola allows him to pilfer her meal without complaint, and Malcolm suspects that this was her plan all along. He's beyond caring at this point.

"What were yeh doin' in the office at this time of night anyway? Don't yeh have juvenile delinquents to round up?"

"They're at their grandparents for the weekend."

"Got all dolled up for a night catching up on policy papers at yer desk did yeh?"

"I don't want to fucking talk about it Malcolm."

He lets it go because the conversation he'd overheard in the office was pretty shitty and she has just shared her chips with him.

The lights are off at the Murray household when they arrive and Malcolm asks Elvis to wait until the hall light is on. 

He's never been so glad to get home. He boots up his laptop and books a spa appointment at the Sanctuary the next day, arranging for the appointment card to be couriered to Nicola in the morning with a note reading "In exchange for the Fruit Shoot. Enjoy being pawed by someone other than a randy dog." Then he crawls into his bed, lets out a groan of pleasure and sleeps for twelve hours.

When he next sees Nicola, fleetingly on her way into a cabinet meeting the following Thursday, she eyes him appraisingly. 

"You're looking rested this week Malcolm."

"Yer lookin' relaxed Nic'la."

They never mention it again.


End file.
